Kenzan for Ikebana arrangement can be used "forever"
The first photo shows Kenzan which is a kind of frog (needlepoint holder) to hold stems of fresh flowers or other plant elements. These are Ikebana arrangements that were made by our students under the instructions of our Ikebana teachers during real lessons in the classroom of California Flower Art Academy.
People who are familiar with Ikebana must have heard of the word " Kenzan". If this is written in Japanese character (called "Kanji"), it shows the meaning of Sword Mountain. There are uncountable number of needles placed on the heavy iron plate. Needle is not a sword but it looks like it is compared to small sword.  |
Onto these needles, the stems of flowers (and also other plant elements) are inserted to hold flowers/plants. When doing Ikebana arrangement, we often use Kenzan especially in case of a very popular type of arranging called Moribana, Kenzan is a mandatory item.
If you buy Kenzan at a floral shop or flower market, it will cost $20 to $30 depending on the size and quality. Once you pay this small amount to get Kenzan, you don't have to pay even a single penny because Kenzan can be repeatedly used almost forever. When it comes to western style of flower arrangement such as European design or American arrangement, we use floral foams ("Oasis").  |
This item is disposable and every time we make brand new arrangement, we use new foams, which is typical. Although floral foam is not so expensive, the running cost of flower arranging results in higher amount than Ikebana because the cost of floral foams is a kind of recurring fee .
California Flower Art Academy offers Various Programs for teaching Japanese traditional Ikebana arrangement in addition to European style floral art. If you like Japanese cultures and have interest in learning Ikebana, we can help. For more information, please contact info@california-academy.com
Following YouTube video introduces Ikebana arrangements by my students in Japan, Ohara School of Ikebana. Video source is Stephen Coler.
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